History of printing

04-01-2020

The history of printing starts as early as 3500 BC, when the Persian and Mesopotamian civilizations used cylinder seals to certify documents written in clay. Other early forms include block seals, pottery imprints and cloth printing. Woodblock printing on paper originated in China around 200 AD. It led to the development of movable type in the eleventh century and the spread of book production in East Asia. Woodblock printing was also used in Europe, but it was in the fifteenth century that European printers developed a process for mass-producing metal type to support an economical book publishing industry. This industry enabled the communication of ideas and sharing of knowledge on an unprecedented scale. Alongside the development of text printing, new and lower-cost methods of image reproduction were developed, including lithography, screen printing and photocopying.